Greek cultural twists
Local filmmakers tackle traditional Thracian dances, sports, arms moguls and much more

A year and a half after the Olympics have come and gone, the event still seems to inspire Greek documentary filmmakers. This year's crop also features personal portraits, current events and music documentaries.

Olympic touchstones
Greek-American filmmaker Valerie Kontakos has finished her documentary on the first-ever Greek baseball team, ''Who's on First?''. After being selected to host to the 2004 Olympics, Greece had to create a national baseball team. Yet the country was faced with three major problems: It had no team, players or baseball venues.
What started out as a quirky Olympic novelty turned into a transatlantic Greek tragedy. The hour-long documentary, which was pitched three years ago in Thessaloniki at EDN's forum, will premiere at the Images of the 21st Century: Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
Meanwhile, another Greek-American, Andrea Sarris, is continuing to make strides on an inspirational tale of two female Afghani athletes. ''Dream On'' follows 17-year old judo athlete Friba and 100 meters runner Robina. In Athens, the two women become role models for a country recovering from a 23-year war and the Taliban. The project in development was pitched at the EDN event last year.

Two fascinating cases
Athens-based Cyclope Productions have at least two interesting new projects. Keep an eye out at the festival for ''Vasilis Zaharov'', director Aggelos Abazoglou's history of the arms trade at the turn of the 20th century through the incredible story of the 'King of Military Industry', Sir Basil Zaharov.

The Turkish/Greek/British/French mogul owned banks, oil wells and newspapers. He was considered the richest man in the world after WWI. The arms sales system that he invented, the 'Zaharov System', is still in use today. One of the many interesting twists in this man's story was that he was decorated 298 times for his pacifist acts.
Abazoglou is also currently developing ''Murder at the Agora'', a 52-minute documentary recently selected for MEDIA support focusing on the works of oft-translated Petros Markaris, a Greek pioneer of detective novels. The camera follows the adventures of Inspector Haritos - Markaris' famous character - in Athens and throughout Greece.
MEDIA backing has also been recently announced for ''Bells and Threads'' (Producer: Lilette Botasi) and ''Hijazz'' (Producers: D. Moutzopoulos, M. Konstantinidis, Icon Plus).

Coffee, anyone?
The ladies in Marianna Economou's comic but poignant group portrait, ''My Place in the Dance'', don't use their telephones to invite each other over for coffee. They shout out windows. They are not just united through coffee and gossip. They have all returned to Greece from a lifetime of working in Germany to enjoy relative prosperity and to endure acute loneliness.
But the women are also living storehouses of Thrace's traditional dances. The documentary traces the women's efforts - working with a patient young instructor - to organize a dance show. Bickering and sabotage are some of the obstacles the dancers face in this project backed by the Greek Film Center, Hellenic Radio Television (ERT), Greek private television station MEGA and Finland's YLE.
Economou is also producing, with Kontakos and Amalia Zepou, a 12-part documentary series on the Greek educational system for ERT.
Local documentarians focus on culture is as keen as ever. Antonis Boskoitis ''Alive at Kittaro Club'' is a new music documentary about the most famous live rock venue in Athens. There are also at least two new films on painters, Nikos Anagnostopoulos' ''In Search of the Lost Painting, Theofanis the Greek'' and Thanos Labropoulos and Stelios Haralambopoulos' ''Yiannis Moralis''.

On our knees
Finally Thanos Anastopoulos tackles a new project about the growing numbers of Athens homeless. The latter is ''a social intervention'', according to the director, linked to Anastopoulos' upcoming theatrical production ''The City on its Knees'', which was in turn inspired by Michel Feis' black and white photography book on the topic.

Eve Tsirigotakis

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